By Rick Young
Special to Weekly Tech Roundup
TV networks and broadcasters are tackling major shifts in how content is produced, managed and delivered. Technology moves fast, but audiences move even faster — and the economics of reaching viewers with tailored news and sports experiences across multiple platforms aren’t getting any easier.
Today, broadcast job roles, departments, and the technology products that bridge them are increasingly coming together. Experienced editorial professionals are being tasked with wider operational responsibilities that sit outside of their core expertise. Non-technical, content-oriented teams are absorbing engineering functions across channel creation, configuration and playout. The underlying technologies required to support these workflows need to be simpler, easier to use — and more efficient at an organizational level. Broadcast networks comment that they need their vendor partners to do more and help them scale with pressured resources. Technology needs to work smarter and harder than ever.
ROI THAT PUTS VIEWERS FIRST
Everyone wants to put the largest share of limited budgets “on-screen” — or focus as much of it as possible on the things that matter to viewers.
Exclusive, original content. Live and local sports. Exceptional journalism and tailored news experiences. Bringing more budget to the screen means automating some of the time-intensive, mundane tasks that restrict creativity and curb innovation. Technology providers should never lose sight of that. Let technology tackle operational complexities so that experienced teams can focus on revenue-generating projects like launching new digital news services or bringing local sports to new platforms. This focus on revenue enablement means organizations are increasingly coming to us to help their operators spin up new versions of core linear channels for OTT and FAST, or pivot to all-IP options that move businesses away from heavy satellite maintenance and engineering costs.
We also see huge shifts in the way major networks manage complex blackouts for local affiliates with varying content rights and limitations. One U.S. TV network uses intelligent versioning and rules-based, automation-driven switching to manage growing affiliate ecosystems across digital platforms like Hulu, YouTube TV and FAST. These types of workflows would typically be incredibly arduous and resource-intensive. Automation is a huge asset in this type of scenario, helping move complicated rights management and blackout tasks from being cost centers to revenue-enablers, bringing live content to new frontiers to reach new audiences more efficiently.
Engineering timelines and project time to markets are getting shorter. At the same time, Ampere Analysis pointed to slowing global content spend this year — particularly among US commercial broadcasters — increasing by just 0.4% year-over-year to reach $248 billion. With tightened expenditure, broadcasters are laser-focused on the time and costs required to manage, process and deliver each piece of content compared to the revenue it generates. An effective way to improve this cost-benefit parameter is by producing once and using better — using versioning tools to create multiple flavors of channels or live events without the additional operators, ad enablement or playout infrastructure typically required.
Pressured teams overseeing editorial and engineering workflows need ways to bridge gaps between operations and technology to make it easier to scale new events or create new digital channels. Disparate workflows across production, programming, advertising and playout need to come together to help these teams operate in new ways. In response to this, we see increased demand for simplified IP ecosystem solutions that tie together fragmented systems with better tooling, visibility, and control. Complicated, multi-vendor chains that are expensive and hard to manage are becoming less appealing for broadcast departments trying to juggle a plethora of tasks and systems with limited internal resources. Simplicity always wins.
SIMPLE, AND SUPPORTED, IP DISTRIBUTION
Many broadcasters are already far along in their IP transformation roadmap. But while perceptions of affordable, easy-to-use technology make protocol-only solutions a useful component of many IP video distribution workflows, shifting operational dynamics mean businesses should think about the long-term resourcing and support implications of build-it-yourself IP protocol solutions without inherent network support. Cheaper IP options can compromise on quality, service levels — or both — and leave you requiring additional full-time resourcing to tackle workflow challenges.
Regardless of how you design your IP transformation or structure converging teams pushing to do more with less, technology needs to work harder, scale better, and be more connected. And not just at a service or system integration level — technologies must be genuinely and uniquely interconnected to deliver the levels of simplicity and effectiveness that pressured teams need. As media organizations evolve and job functions blend in new ways, creativity will always sit at the top of the agenda. Keep your outcomes clear, but make your technology partners work harder and smarter. That’s our job.
Rick Young serves as the SVP of Global Products at LTN and is based in Atlanta. He has been in the role since August 2019, rising from VP of Global Business Development. Before joining LTN, Young was in a similar role at Encompass Digital Media Inc. From September 2010 through mid-2015, he was a VP at Bitcentral. Early career experience includes roles at ABC News and the Associated Press and as Operations Manager of WGMR (now WFGE-FM 101.1) in State College, Pa.; Young is a graduate of Penn State University.
